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rail - What does it mean?

Definition of 'rail'

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) (m), (m), ; see regular.

Noun

(en-noun)
  • A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing.
  • * |chapter=7
    • |title= Mr. Pratt's Patients |passage=Old Applegate, in the stern, just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail , close to the stern.}}
  • The metal bar that makes the track for a railroad.
  • * {{quote-magazine|date=2013-06-01|volume=407|issue=8838
    • |page=13 (Technology Quarterly)|magazine=(The Economist) |title= Ideas coming down the track |passage=A “moving platform” scheme
  • A railroad; a railway.
  • A horizontal piece of wood that serves to separate sections of a door or window.
  • (surfing) One of the lengthwise edges of a surfboard.
  • * Nick Carroll, surfline.com [http://www.surfline.com/community/whoknows/10_21_rails.cfm]:
    • Rails alone can only ever have a marginal effect on a board's general turning ability.
    Derived terms
    * guardrail * handrail * live rail * railcard (rel-mid3) * railfanning * railhead * railway (rel-mid3) * ride the rails * split rail * third rail (rel-bottom)

    Verb

    (en-verb)
  • To travel by railway.
  • * Rudyard Kipling
    • Mottram of the Indian Survey had ridden thirty and railed one hundred miles from his lonely post in the desert
  • To enclose with rails or a railing.
  • * Ayliffe
    • It ought to be fenced in and railed .
  • To range in a line.
  • * Francis Bacon
    • They were brought to London all railed in ropes, like a team of horses in a cart.

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en-noun) (Rallidae) (Rallidae)
  • Any of several birds in the family Rallidae.

    • Usage notes

    Not all birds in the family Rallidae are rails by their common name. The family also includes coots]], moorhens, crakes, flufftails, [[waterhen|waterhens and others.
    Derived terms
    * banded rail
    Related terms
    * ralline

    See also

    * corncrake

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) railler.

    Verb

    (en-verb)
  • To complain violently ((against), (about)).
  • * {{quote-news
    • |year=2012 |date=June 4 |author=Lewis Smith |title=Queen's English Society says enuf is enough, innit? |work=the Guardian citation |page= |passage=The Queen may be celebrating her jubilee but the Queen's English Society, which has railed against the misuse and deterioration of the English language, is to fold.}}
  • * 1994 , Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom , Abacus 2010, p. 27:
    • Chief Joyi railed against the white man, whom he believed had deliberately sundered the Xhosa tribe, dividing brother from brother.

    Etymology 4

    From (etyl) (m), (m), from (etyl) .

    Alternative forms

    *

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • (obsolete) An item of clothing; a cloak or other garment; a dress.
  • (obsolete) Specifically, a woman's headscarf or neckerchief.
    • (Fairholt)
    Derived terms
    * night-rail

    Etymology 5

    Probably from (etyl) raier, (etyl) raier.

    Verb

    (en-verb)
  • (label) To gush, flow (of liquid).
  • *, Bk.V, Ch.iv:
  • *:his breste and his brayle was bloodé – and hit rayled all over the see.
  • *1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.2:
  • *:So furiously each other did assayle, / As if their soules they would attonce haue rent / Out of their brests, that streames of bloud did rayle / Adowne, as if their springes of life were spent.

    • Anagrams

    * * * * * * English terms with multiple etymologies ----

    Similar to 'rail'

    real, royal, roll, rill, roil, reel, riel, rowel, riyal, rial, roial, rel, ryal